Sizzle and Burn (The Arcane Society #3)(33)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

Zack seized the opening and ran toward the far end of the breezeway. If he could reach the parking lot, he could use the parked cars as shields.

Ski Mask was suddenly behind him, running him down the way a predator runs down prey.

Zack whipped around in a small, tight circle. When he came out of it, he had one foot extended.

Caught in mid-morph, Ski Mask stumbled over the foot and went down. But he rolled to his feet as the old lady with paranormal speed.

Zack grabbed the purple blanket that was lying on the concrete. He flung it at the woman’s face.

The blanket found its target, wrapping around the attacker’s eyes for a few critical seconds. The old woman leaped back, swiping wildly at the fabric with her free hand.

Lesson Number One from the gym and the dojo: luck and surprise beat even the best reflexes every time.

The woman switched back to the ski mask persona.

Zack made no attempt to close with him. There was no way he could win in hand-to-hand combat with a hunter. He had to stay out of reach. The gun was his only hope. He could see it out of the corner of his eye. It lay on the concrete about ten feet away.

He was edging toward it when headlights suddenly flared, illuminating Ski Mask and himself in a blinding glare. A car was pulling into a nearby parking slot.

The black-clad figure hesitated again. Then he whirled and raced out of the breezeway into the shadows of the parking lot. Zack scooped up the gun and went after him, but he knew that the fleeing man’s superior reflexes and speed were going to trump his mirror talent.

Ski Mask arrived at a dark SUV that had been sitting at the far side of the lot. The passenger door was already open and the vehicle was in motion when he leaped up into the passenger seat. The big engine roared as the driver stomped down on the accelerator.

The vehicle, running with the lights off, slammed forward, aiming straight at Zack. It didn’t take any high-grade mirror talent to figure out that if he stayed where he was he was going to get flattened.

He leaped into the safety of the narrow valley between two parked vehicles.

The SUV sped past him out of the lot and onto the street. It vanished around the next corner. He was not greatly surprised to note that there was no license plate.

He heard a familiar ring tone. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the phone and flipped it open.

“Jones,” he said automatically, his attention on the streetlights at the intersection where the SUV had disappeared.

“Zack?” Raine’s voice was tight and urgent. “Are you all right?”

The anxious edge in her voice distracted him immediately.

“What’s wrong?” he asked sharply.

“I’m not sure. I got a little panicky a few minutes ago. For some reason I thought you were in trouble.”

“Huh.”

“You’re breathing hard. Oh, good grief.” She sounded utterly chagrined. She cleared her throat. “Am I, uh, interrupting something?”

It took him a second to figure out what she meant. “No. What’s going on, Raine?”

“Don’t snap at me like that. Pisses me off.”

“Damn it, what the hell is wrong?”

“I went to the closet to get your number out of my purse and I found something weird. If I’m not hallucinating, then I may have a serious problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

She drew a deep, shaky-sounding breath.

“I think the Bonfire Killer may have followed me home,” she said quietly. “He was in my condo tonight. Left a little souvenir.”

Twenty-four

He was at her door in less than ten minutes, which meant he’d broken every speed limit in Oriana.

When Raine let him into the condo her eyes went straight to the duffel bag in his hand. It was a straightforward clue that he intended to spend the night. She did not raise any objections. That spoke volumes about her common sense, he thought.

The two cats circled him a few times with interest and then allowed him to rub their ears. Satisfied, they trotted off into the living room.

That was when he realized that Raine was staring at him, her mouth open in shock.

“What happened to you?” she whispered, eyes widening.

He looked down and saw that his shirt was hanging loose beneath his jacket. His hair was probably mussed but, all in all, not too bad. He wondered why she looked so stricken. Then it dawned on him that she was picking up the energy created by adrenaline and violence.

“There was a fight,” he said. “The other guy got away.”

“You got into a fight?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll explain later.”

She glowered. “You told me you tried to avoid bar fights.”

“This fight wasn’t in a bar. Tell me about the cup fragment you found in your coat. Are you sure it’s a piece of the one you used in Shelbyville?”

For a moment he thought she was going to insist on pursuing the bar fight lecture but she reluctantly focused on the cup instead.

“I can’t be certain it’s the same cup that was on the tea tray,” she admitted. “But there was one just like it in my room. It was still there when I checked out.”

“I remember it.”

“He must have entered the room, found the cup, smashed it and left a piece here tonight.”

He looked at the locks. “How did he get into your condo?”

“I don’t know.” She hugged herself tightly. “There was no sign of forced entry. I didn’t pick up any bad vibes off the doorknob.”

“You wouldn’t,” he said absently, “not unless he was in a killing frenzy when he broke in. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wore gloves when he let himself in here. Psychic energy transmits most readily with direct skin-to-object contact. Gloves are fairly effective barriers.”

She shuddered and looked at the black-lacquered shelf positioned beneath a wall sconce. “He must have been in a rage when he smashed the teacup. That piece of china reeks of panic and fury.”

He followed her gaze and saw a fragment of broken china on the shelf. Steeling himself, he reached out and picked it up.

Dark energy crackled across his senses. A scene appeared and then disappeared in his mind like a film clip from a nightmare. It lasted only a couple of heartbeats. In that brief span of time he felt the cup in his hand, experienced the rush of rage and panic, abandoned himself to the sheer release of hurling the delicate china against a hard surface.

He set the china fragment back down on the shelf, trying to dampen the fresh surge of biochemicals shooting through his bloodstream. He’d already OD’d on that particular drug mix tonight.